History
The Creatures series of games has had a long and convoluted history. This page is dedicated to it, in particular the events surrounding the companies involved in their production: Millennium, Cyberlife, Creatures Labs and Gameware Development. A good overview is provided in: * A potted history of Creature Labs and Gameware Development (the official story). Timeline of Events to be filled in - don't feel you have to restrict yourself to official doings, anything that has interest to the community is fine:-) 1992 *'September 1992': Creatures is concieved. From Tips.txt: :The initial ideas for this project were conceived on a motel balcony in Winthrop, WA, USA in September 1992. *'4 November 1992': Steve Grand writes A Mouse for Windows *'16 November 1992': Steve Grand writes Little Computer Ewoks *'23 December 1992': Steve Grand writes Ewoks techie bit for proposal 1993 *'8 March 1993': Steve Grand writes Small Furry Creatures: A Mythography (first use of Small Furry Creatures as title), which contains the first details of the Journey, Grendels (although not as we know them today), Ettins (even dumber than they turned out) and the Shee (Siðe) *'1 June 1993': First available notes from Steve Grand's programming diary - very interesting reading *'18 July 1993': Steve Grand writes the first fragments of a Creatures-themed novella, Wulf's Journey, creating the first Creatures fan-fiction over two years before the game was actually released *'12 December 1993': Steve Grand explains that the mythology is intended for background purposes, not as an actual plotline: :I never intended Creatures to be an adventure game or have a fixed plot at all - the idea was that you would create your own stories . . . But everyone had interpreted my mythography stuff far too literally, and people were trying to make Creatures into some kind of Norse adventure game . . . :GreenReaper's thought: '"Viking Creatures: Norns with Horns!"'' 1994 *'''6 July 1994: Michael Hayward decides that the game needs more time to mature and that Steve Grand should "take the game out of the schedule" (see the diary entry) :GreenReaper: I think this was a very important decision - without the extra time for correct positioning and reworking, Creatures would never have been the game it turned out to be. Heck, it was still for DOS back then, and bibble hadn't even been concieved! :-) :It is also interesting to note the features described as possible for the rewrite, many of which would not be fully realized until Creatures 3 or Docking Station: Decided to add 5 months to schedule; more gratuitous graphics; more facial expressions; new norns (monkeylike); everybody’s norn is unique; complete rethink and rewrite of code; add hooks for extensions; allow norns to travel from one person’s system to another, via disc or modem; buy new norns; possible speech in/out. *'1 August 1994': The Cheat menu is added *'10 October 1994': Plans for DDE support are finalized, laying the foundations for external tools to communicate with Creatures 1995 *'23 Janurary 1995': Steve Grand has the idea of making clay relief model of the Creatures environment and digitising it. Mark Rafter agrees a few days later, and begins work on the model. *'19 July 1995': Creatures finally has a complete design definition - as with most software development projects, it required actually building most of the program to fully define it . . . 1996 *'10:50 am, 21 March 1996' The first norn ever bred in captivity was born. He was called Cain, son of Ron and Eve. 1997 *'24 July 1997': Creatures is released in the USA by Mindscape 1998 1999 2000 2001 *'2001': The mysterious Docker released to the public *'7 December 2001': Creatures PS1 is released in Europe by Swing! Entertainment Media AG 2002 *'11 January 2002': Creatures GBA is released in Europe by Swing! Entertainment Media AG *'8 February 2002': Creatures GBA is released in the US by Conspiracy Entertainment *'14 May 2002': Creatures: Raised in Space for the PS1 is released by Conspiracy Entertainment 2003 2004 *'30 December 2004': The Creatures Wiki is launched; within one week, 500 pages have been written 2005